The Husband HuntersNov 9, 201817mDownton Abbey was and still is an international craze: the story of a titled British family and their lives in the 1910s to 1920s. One thing that may have surprised a lot of viewers, however, is the fact that Cora Crawley, the mother of the family, is American. What was an American doing in the English aristocracy in the 1920s? Why was she there at all?